Sign in / up

back to article Now RIAA says copying your own CDs is illegal

The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has began a legal spat with a man who copied CDs he had bought onto his computer. Jeffery Howell of Scottsdale, Arizon has taken his case to court after he received a letter from the RIAA, reports the Washington Post. The RIAA, which lobbies on behalf of a music industry hammered …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Gwyn Kemp-Philp
    Stop

    Loss shift

    The reasoning behind the policy is loss shifting. You get your music stolen then you buy again. There's no profit in allowing you to avoid losing out, it would make them the victim of crime and not you.

    As I see it, you buy the physical CD but only purchase a licence to listen to the music on it.

    As no backups are allowed in the UK compared to the own-use backup law of the USA, and we pay twice as much, it would be arguable that they should supply two copies, or at least replace for one time, any defective or damaged disks free of charge.

    When I buy CD's or DVD's for my own use storing data or my own works, should I invoice the RCAA (or whoever) for a refund of the levy charged on the disks?

    Maybe we should start a trend of burying them in invoices and replacement disk claims...

    Everyone says that as consumers we have no power in deal making, that is forgetting that their very existence depends on the money that we give them. Maybe we should think about rationing that income to focus their minds a bit.

    0 0
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @ Gordon Ross

    There's one very simple explanation for Recording Industry Ass. of America not going after Sony, Apple, and all the other manufacturers of MP3 players... THEY have money to pay lawyers to take RIAA apart in court... Sony, Apple, et all could easily hire the litigation equivalent of O.J.'s legal dream team ten times over, and rip to shreds all of RIAA's supposed legal authority to do what they're doing.

    RIAA can't take a chance on that, so they will continue to go after 80 year old grandmothers and seven year old children.

    Me coat's the Mickey Mouse one on the left...

    Late Night Larry

    0 0
  3. TheHempKnight
    Flame

    More RIAA nonsense

    Ahh how typical of the RIAA. When companies like Itunes were offering tracks at a small charge per download, and that was doing well, I thought maybe they'd finally seen SOME sense.

    As quoted above from their own website, you are allowed to copy music to another CD, or MP3 Player provided that you own the original.

    When will these idiots realise that maybe they'll SELL more and people will do less illegal downloading IF they offered these albums and singles at REASONABLE PRICES rather than overinflating prices and passing little to the artists.

    Hopefully Radiohead have started a trend where artists go label free and sell directly at reasonable prices cutting out the fatcats who do virtually FA.

    0 0
  4. Derrick White

    Doesn't the USA have laws that protect copying for private use?

    From the Copyright Board of Canada (http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33770)

    Copying for Private Use

    80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of

    (a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,

    (b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or

    (c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied

    onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.

    0 0
  5. Smell My Finger

    What if you loose?

    It looks to me this is the natural conclusion to the RIAA's anti-piracy policy. For years the RIAA has been provoked by the bootleggers and file sharers who have constructed endless arguments to give legal and moral legitimacy to their activities. It has come to the point where everyone now looks like a criminal as the anti-piracy drive has compeletely lost its way.

    Sony and Apple are extremely unlikely to "take RIAA apart in court," not least that Sony BMG Music Group is a RIAA member and four of its executives are members of the RIAA Board. Also RIAA members can just as quickly cut off Apple's air supply as iTunes is almost entirely beholden to RIAA members.

    Surely its obvious on one hand the RIAA uses copyright law against consumer interests but on the other hand consumers have been taking the piss thinking they can pirate material with impunity. We need a better strategy to fight against private monopolies which are no better than racketeering but the problem of them goes way beyond just the record industry. Most of the complaints in this thread can be distilled down to self-interest without any thought that private monopolies are part of a much broader problem causing far greater harm than just sticking up the prices of CDs and suing music pirates.

    0 0
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Why now ?

    "The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has began a legal spat with a man who copied CDs he had bought onto his computer."

    As everyone else here, I fail to understand how the only way to listen to an MP3 without stealing it off any torrent, for a good 10 years, becomes immediately a very serious offense.

    Surely, the RIA wouldn't have done that 3 years back, no ?

    Why now ? Ah, got it, the law is automatically aligned on the music content market ! And splitting CD-music and MP3-music is believed to bring more revenue. Mad.

    Would be nice, indeed to have more details on that matter ...

    PS: Anonymous for obvious reasons, as I've always been honest and never P2Ped any music. And I have 2 MP3 players.

    0 0
  7. richard tanswell
    Thumb Down

    iTunes et al

    So if it is illegal, why does iTunes, WMP etc ask if you want to copy the songs to your computer when you try to play a CD through your CDROM drive?

    Surely Apple and Microsoft are just as guilty for offering this "illegal feature"??

    They should sort it out with the "Big Guns" and establish a law between them before ganging up on the helpless little guys!

    Of course if he is sharing these files then I have no sympathy for him! Maybe British Transport Police should be banging up all of the iPod users on the trains!

    0 0
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    They still call it theft?

    Surely something should be done to stop these organizations mis-characterizing alleged Breach of Copyright instances as Theft?

    At least here in the UK, theft is lawfully recognized as "the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it" - by breaching copyright you are not in any way "...depriving that person of it"

    Even in the US they have a very similar definition as seen here: http://definitions.uslegal.com/t/theft/

    0 0
  9. James Pickett
    Happy

    Brilliant...

    The RIAA claims that its big problem is lost CD sales, so what do they do? Start suing the people who are keeping the business afloat!

    0 0
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Version size

    I see that the RIAA lawyers in their brief make a point of noting that google can save thousands of copies of images legally of the web because these copies are downsized and shrunk.

    Surely an MP3 is a downsized compressed copy of the orginal CD version, and thus people should be able to copy them according to the rules that they state apply to google.

    0 0
  11. A J Stiles
    Happy

    @Robert E A Harvey

    "The situation in the UK is that so-called "fair use" private copying has always been in breach of some damn thing or other (http://legalit.itproportal.com/?p=14 refers) .

    The MCPS has never challenged, to my knowledge, media-shifting for private use, but I can see no reason why they should not."

    I can see a very good reason not to challenge it. Someone would have to be taken to court and prosecuted for criminal copyright violation. Out of a jury of twelve people, at least two of them -- and likely all twelve -- will have at least one home-taped cassette in their cars. That's a recipe for a legal precedent that private copying is OK. On the other hand, if the court somehow managed to rule that private copying was *not* OK, the likely consequences would make the Poll Tax rebellion look like a sunday-school picnic, and private copying would eventually have to be legalised by emergency legislation.

    0 0
  12. Steve Wedge
    Flame

    Keep it up...

    ...you greedy sods. You're digging your own graves.

    0 0
  13. Jay Dee
    Unhappy

    RISE up and fight

    The latest crap from the RIAA has got to be the bottom of the barrell scrapings as I see it. If we let them it will be impossible to make video movies with our own purchased music since we will have burned it to our computer first.

    I for one am suggesting world wide revolution and starting the K.R.I.A.A Association. (Kick the Recording Industry of America’s ASS.) Association.

    If we all throw in $20.00 we can probably get a lawyer not afraid to do battle with these miscreants. Who's with me?

    0 0
  14. Andy

    Ooops I did it again

    Darn it, I appear to have copied the music from digital CD format to analog audio and then from that to neural net storage. Unable to stop my lawbreaking tendencies I then then played it back again in public (admittedly in a much degraded form) by humming it in the shower. Oh and bugger me if my girlfriend didn't overhear it and do the same.

    Do I have to pay royalties if I just remember it or only for humming it out load?

    0 0
  15. Ole Juul

    Re: Ooops I did it again

    That's the point that many people seem to miss. It is not legal to let other people hear your copyrighted recordings, and it also not legal to perform these same works in public such as humming them while walking down the street. As to whether it is legal to just remember the music is perhaps a grey area. You can get away with humming a song to yourself but that is only because of the underdeveloped level of surveillance. That may change. It is only because of the gracious attitude of the RIAA that we are able to get away with those things now.

    The fact is that most people hide their illegal behavior and put on a different face in public. Those who preach otherwise had better not ever have played a copyrighted CD in the presence of others, ie. non-rights holders.

    Personally I think copyright law is a pile of sh*t. People who follow rules like that are the same ones who, as pedestrians, wait for a red light when there is no traffic in sight. Get a grip.

    0 0
  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can I sue?

    I bought the CD single "The Beat(en) Generation" by The The many years ago.. and the aluminimum coating soon started to errode, eventually eating into the data.

    I actually contacted the record company asking if they could replace it, but just told me they couldn't (they didn't have a copy of it themselves) and that it was just one of those things.

    Since it would be illegal for me to copy the CD or MP3 it, and they couldn't/wouldn't replace it despite being faulty, should I sue my local independent retailer for selling goods unfit for their intended purpose?

    I'd like my £1.99 back and compensation for the years of heartache inflicted on me by not being able to listen to that song.

    0 0
  17. Tim

    Re: Cd is an inconvenient format

    Whilst inconvenient for playing, I continue to buy CDs as the quality when ripped properly (e.g. with EAC) to a lossless format like FLAC is vastly superior to almost all downloads on offer (legit or otherwise).

    My media server is a big collection of FLAC versions of these CDs which are played direct by my Squeezebox (which plays FLACs), and I convert as necessary to high quality MP3s for use on my MP3 player.

    Wouldn't touch a 'pay' download with a bargepole unless they are DRM free and guaranteed at least CD quality.

    I don't even bother with pirate downloads because almost always the quality of the encoding is so rubbish it just makes me go out and buy the CD.

    Sadly the majority of people don't give a crap about quality, hence music quality has gone downhill over the years (Vinyl better than CD, CD better than downloads, etc).

    0 0
  18. DaAngel
    Heart

    Another few points

    I had been reading the brief that the RIAA lawyers presented, and some of the points seem good. However the one about google shrinking stuff and then presenting it did not. In fact the whole think stinks, if search engines can do this, surely there is someway for P2P to try the same loophole.

    Also. If I read it right, the RIAA are saying that because the copyright holder hold the copyright they have the ability to say who and who cannot distribute copies. That to deny them that right, even if a transaction takes place or not, denys them

    publishers rights or copyright rights. That sounds grand. Especially if it is looked at large scale as in the court enviroment that they are engaged in.

    It seems to lose appeal to me though, when I consider the argument of my teenage daughter. Can I borrow your CD dad?

    No you can't, its illegal and the RIAA is suing people in court for distributing their material without a pre authorization. I would take away their copyright rights and be fined per song up to $150000. Surely this cannot be right even in the tight fisted definations of any lawyer.

    There are a lot of points like this they make in their brief. Taken on a big grand scale they seem to make some sense. If you look closely at it and try not to be to legal about it most of it does not make sense in the small scale in which people live their normal lives. Surely I can lend my daughter my CD. Yes she does live with me.

    So while they state that they have the right to decide who can sell or offer their copyright material, I state that If buy a CD, I am buying a CD with music on it( not a blank CD) for my personal benfit, and that they when they sell it they should be smart enough know this. If it is to my personal benift to give it as a gift to someone, so be it. It it is to lend it, so be it. If it is to trade or sell it, so be it. If I want to make a copy so I can stick it on my MP3 player so be it. I bought it for my personal benfit, then thats what Im going to do with it.

    0 0
  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    riaa

    are full of sh!t

    0 0

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.